By Mustafa Ali
LAHORE, :In a major operation at Lahore airport, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Immigration authorities arrested five passengers attempting to travel abroad using fake travel documents and visas.
A spokesperson for the FIA said the arrested individuals had been identified as Sajid Ali, Jawad Ahmed, Tahseen Ali, Owais Khan and Farooq Ahmed. They were attempting to board Flight HY-462 to Uzbekistan when they were found suspicious during immigration clearance. Upon investigation, it was discovered that the passengers were in possession of counterfeit Uzbek visas on their Pakistani passports.The accused revealed that they had purchased the fake visas from agents named Usman, Shahid, and Ayub, who had charged them large sums of money. In total, the agents had collected 2.9 million Pakistani rupees from the passengers for the forged documents.
The FIA has transferred the arrested passengers to the Anti-Human Trafficking Circle in Lahore for further investigation.Director FIA Lahore Zone, Sarfraz Khan Virk, confirmed that a crackdown against those involved in the production of fake documents is ongoing. Additionally, thorough checks of suspicious travel documents will be conducted to prevent such fraudulent activities in the future, added Virk
